April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Alstom SA Chief Executive Officer
Patrick Kron misled the government by insisting he wasn’t
seeking to sell any part of the French engineering company,
Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg said.

“Does the Economy Minister have to install lie detectors
in his office because the CEO of a CAC 40 company isn’t
public spirited enough to alert the government,” Montebourg
asked during a debate in parliament today.

The French government learned from a Bloomberg News report
that Alstom was in talks with General Electric Co. with regard
to a potential bid, Montebourg said in a statement on April 27.
Over the weekend, Germany’s Siemens AG said it would make an
offer of its own, which the minister said was being delivered
today to Alstom.

“This government doesn’t accept -- and what government
would -- the ‘fait accompli’ of being told Friday night that one
of its industrial jewels is going to be sold on Sunday,”
Montebourg said in parliament. “I’ve been asking since February
and each time Patrick Kron, the chairman of this jewel, solemnly
assured me that he didn’t have any projects for alliances.”

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as well as Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser and
Chairman Gerhard Cromme, yesterday met with French President
Francois Hollande. He told them that the state, which doesn’t
have a direct stake in Alstom, would insist on the preservation
of jobs, keeping decision making in France, and the protection
of the country’s energy independence.

GE’s Behavior

Montebourg said that Alstom, which sells turbines to the
nuclear plants run by electrical utility Electricite de France
SA, “lives off of public contracts.”

Alstom, saved from bankruptcy about a decade ago by the
state, employs 18,000 people in France and has a market value of
about 8.3 billion euros ($11.5 billion).

Montebourg defended the state’s intervention in the case,
saying that, given its strategic nature, such action is
necessary. He said France is open to foreign investors, adding
that GE has acted “totally correctly in this affair.”